Money Problems Our Grandparents Never Had

Olden days were when people live happily with what they had, without much expense at all. We researched today’s biggest expenses that never existing in yesteryear.

8 expenses our grandparents never had:

Mobile Phone Bills

Our grandparents for most of their lives never had mobile phones. For my grandparents, they didn’t have phones at all for a lot of their lives. A mobile phone bill was a problem they never had. The idea of a $100/month phone and data plan was inconceivable. That’s a $1200/year expense they didn’t have.

Internet Bills

For an NBN connection that is faster than dial-up, that will cost $69.99/month. The internet is an expense our grandparents never had. For us, all the internet is a way for us to look at cat videos and compulsively spend money on stuff we don’t need. That’s $839.88/year our grandparents didn’t have to spend.

Credit Card Bills

Visa and MasterCard arrived in Australia in the 1980’s, leading the way to a credit card debt explosion in the late 1980’s and 1990’s. There were charge cards before this but they were cards like Dinner’s Card that had to be paid off in full every month. Psychological studies show that you are more likely to overspend if you use a credit card.

Internet Fraud

Historically it was nearly impossible for someone in Nigeria or Russia to steal your identity. Our grandparents didn’t have to worry about someone stealing their identity and even if they did steal it, there was very little they could do with it given there were no credit cards or online shopping. Online fraud costs Australia about $2 billion a year.

HECS/HELP

Up until 1960’s, less than 5% of the country went to university. Most jobs provided on the job training- apprenticeships, clerkship or cadetship. Jobs that we think of now as requiring universities, such as Architecture, Nursing or Teaching, did not require a university degree. The trend towards formal education has led to dramatic increases in debt people today incur to get a job.

Overseas Trips

Before 1980 most people didn’t travel overseas. In 1960 only 10% of Australians had been on a plane. Since 1980 the price of air travel has halved and this has led to a dramatic increase in overseas travel and the expenses associated with it. Our grandparents just went camping, or to caravan parks. If they were fancy, they went for driving holiday and stayed at motels. The average Millennial spends $3,461 per trip on travel. So such money problems our grandparents never had.

Two Cars

Most households in our grandparent’s era had 1 car. That saves them all the costs of a second car. They don’t need to buy the second car and there’s no petrol, ergo, insurance, and repairs on that second vehicle either. Somewhere around the mid-1990’s two cars became mandatory and the expense added that goes with that.

Electricity Bills

Our grandparent’s households consumed relatively little electricity. They had no air conditioners, no dryers, no computers and no big screen televisions. One of the things you need do when renovating an old house is that you need to rewire because it won’t handle the amount of current we want to use now. It’s designed for a light bulb in each room, a fridge and maybe radio. Consequently, they had much lower electricity bills.

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